It's Hard Enough Just to Breath I Can't Lose You (Kelly Clarkson)
by Reader's Inflammation
Summary: Person B gets annoyed or weirded out at Person A's sudden clinginess.


Cecil was acting strangely when he came home from work.

Carlos had just gotten home a couple minutes ago and had started cooking dinner for them when Cecil burst through the door, looked around the apartment wildly, and ran to Carlos once he'd spotted him, throwing his arms around his boyfriend and burying his face into Carlos's shoulder.

"Cecil?" Carlos asked worriedly. "Is something wrong? Are you okay?"

Cecil nodded quickly into Carlos's shoulder, then stood up straight and said, "Yeah, everything's fine. I just _really_ missed you."

Carlos sighed out of relief. "Oh, okay. Long day at work?"

Cecil nodded his head with a far-off expression.

"Want to talk about it?"

Shake of the head.

"Okay, maybe later then. Dinner's almost ready. Would you get the drinks and plates for me, sweetie?"

Cecil went off to complete Carlos's requests as the latter finished making dinner. When Cecil had set out the drinks and brought the plates to Carlos, though, he hovered behind him not saying anything. Carlos looked over at him with a questioning expression a couple of times, but Cecil merely smiled.

When Carlos filled their plates and they went to eat at the table, Carlos saw that Cecil's chair was pulled over right next to Carlos's. Not saying anything because he feared that he would upset Cecil, Carlos sat down and they ate their meal with small talk about their days.

Cecil became even more clingy over the course of the week. It started out as little stuff like more and more texts and calls, just checking in on Carlos, and many more hugs whenever Carlos saw him. But then it grew into Cecil driving Carlos to work every morning, even though it was in the complete opposite direction of the news station, and then Cecil stopping by during the weather and other breaks in his reports even if they were only for mere minutes. Then Cecil began stopping by Carlos's lab right after his newscast finished, and actually waited there until Carlos was done with his experiments, sometimes for hours, before they both drove home.

Carlos had once suggested Cecil going home, but he had actually thought that his boyfriend may cry by the look on his face, so he took it back and told him he could stay.

It's not that Carlos didn't love seeing Cecil more and more; he most certainly did. But it was started to hinder his work when he turned around only to crash into Cecil whilst carrying an Erlenmeyer flask. Cecil always apologized profusely, but Carlos was just worried that he was going to spill something on him and possibly hurt him.

Carlos decided that he was going to have to talk to Cecil about what is bothering him. One night after they had driven home from work, Carlos pulled Cecil over to their sofa and sat him down, taking the seat right next to him. Carlos turned his body to face his boyfriend's and put his hand onto Cecil's, which was resting on his thigh.

"Cecil," Carlos started. "I think we need to talk."

Cecil's eyes went wide for a second, so Carlos quickly said, "I'm worried about you. You've been kind of clingy lately and I do love being with you, so very much, but I want to know what's going on."

Cecil looked at Carlos for a second, then dropped his chin and said quietly, "I've just missed you is all."

Carlos was puzzled. That couldn't just be it. He carefully lifted Cecil's chin and saw that he had tears forming in the corners of his eyes. The look on his boyfriend's face almost made Carlos burst into tears, but he hugged him so he could hide his reddening eyes. They stayed like that for a couple minutes until Carlos pulled away again, and whispered, "Cecil, please tell me what's wrong."

After taking a deep shuddering breath, Cecil said, "I can't lose you."

Thoroughly confused, Carlos told him, "You're not going to lose me. I'm staying right here with you."

"But you don't know that," Cecil responded. Carlos didn't know what to say, so he didn't say anything and let Cecil continue.

"Intern Dana was telling me last week about how she had just found out that her sister was killed in a car accident."

Now everything made sense. Cecil kept talking.

"And she was so upset because it was her own sister—you know that they were only three years apart?—and she was just on her way to work when it happened, like she was there one moment and then just gone the next without anyone in the car with her as she died, and Dana didn't even get to say goodbye, and—"

Carlos cut him off by putting both of his hands onto Cecil's cheeks and saying, "I'm so sorry that happened to Dana, Cecil, but I promise that I'm not going to die anytime soon. Not when you're still here with me."

Cecil smiled which made Carlos smile.

"You know that I love you, right Carlos?" Cecil asked. Carlos smiled even wider.

"Of course I do, Ceec," Carlos told him. "I love you, too. So much."

They kissed and everything went back to relatively normal.

* * *

Imagine person A of your OTP recently heard about a friend's relative dying unexpectedly in an accident and starts to obsess about spending every moment they can with Person B. Person B gets annoyed or weirded out at Person A's sudden clinginess until they find out that they were just scared of losing them.


End file.
